We have good news and bad news on the jobs front. There are more openings out there, but also, there's a lot more competition for each one of those jobs. CNN's Christine Romans joins us live now from New York with more on this -- Christine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: What we're seeing, Fredricka, is that in the month of January, there were employers who are starting to cautiously hire again. The job market is hiring and firing and something called the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows the job openings grew 193,000 to 2.7 million in the month, but we still have an awful long way to go to get back to pre-recession levels. Really, I mean, the competition is stiff out there. So, in January there were 2.7 million available jobs. Well. In December 2007, there were 4.4 million available jobs. Today, there are 5.5 candidates for every job opening. Back before the recession, there were 1.7.
In a healthy economy, you shouldn't have to be fighting against so many other people to get a job, and Fredricka, when I report this number, that there are five or six people waiting for every job opening. I get an awful lot of e-mail from people saying it doesn't feel that way to me. It feels more like 30 or 40, so it's still tough out there for job seekers.
But where are the gains? Where are you starting to see employers at least inching in and carefully hiring? Education and health care, also hotels and restaurants. Both of these groups saw the number of hirings up about 13 percent, the number of jobs opening rather up about 13 percent in the month of January. How about the job losses? Arts, entertainment and government. No surprise there in government really, Fredricka, because so many government jobs have been added over the past couple of years. It's no surprise to see a little bit of a pull back there -- Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right. Christine Romans, thanks so much. Kinda off for a little hope there for people who are looking for a job. It's pretty depressing that the five people are fighting for that one, but I think I have to agree with you and a lot of your e-mailers. I hear from a lot of people who say it seems like ten times more than that.
ROMANS:I know. I can tell you it's moving in the right direction, but it's moving slowly, moving slowly in the right direction. That's what it is.
WHITFIELD: Okay. We got to be patient. Thanks so much, Christine.
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